A Woman for Hire
by Aling
Summary: Hermione Granger loves her work almost as much as she loves her boyfriend. Warnings: dubious morals, explicit sexual content, semi-graphic violence, light BDSM, character death


**Disclaimer: **_Harry Potter_ is the property of JK Rowling. I make no profit from this story, and no copyright infringement is intended.

**A/N:** Many thanks to tonksinger for the beta.

********

Hermione gingerly stepped outside of the Muggle pub, descending the uneven steps in her teetering stilettos. She exaggerated the swaying of her hips for the benefit of the leering drunks throwing catcalls at her as she was leaving. Their admiration, though demeaning, made her feel sexy. Wanted.

She watched with rapt attention as concentric puffs of warm air emerged one after the other from her painted mouth, red as sin. In an effort to appear more or less sober, she steadied her breathing and put her carefully cultivated façade firmly in place.

It had taken her a great many clients to perfect her devil-may-care, femme fatale routine. Seduction hadn't come naturally to her at first, but she had been willing to do whatever it took. The alcohol thrumming in her bloodstream certainly provided her with plenty of bravado for the task, not that she needed it anymore.

She knew she shouldn't drink while on the job—she would never hear the end of it if Jacquelyn ever found out—but by now she had built up such a high tolerance that one or two shots hardly affected her. At best, it relaxed her nerves, allowing her to carry through her assignments with a steady hand. At worst, she became a little too enthusiastic.

Tonight, she was Victoria, a curvy siren with glossy black tresses and shuttered blue eyes to match her cool demeanor. Her hair was up in a simple chignon, held in place by an ornate silver clip. Even if one were looking for magical interference, the average witch or wizard would be unable to tell Hermione was disguised. Glamours were for the unfortunate chumps who didn't know any better. Those in the trade had their own well-kept secrets, _Integumentum Verus_* among them; unlike a Glamour, there were no blurry outlines or indistinct features to give one's self away.

Spotting her target, Hermione reflected that she would especially enjoy tonight's tryst; more than money was at stake here.

Steam rose off of the streets as the rain came down in torrents. The pub's awning only just covered the pavement, and the wind blew a light diagonal mist onto any bystanders.

Hermione cast a nonverbal Shield Charm on herself to counter the elements and sauntered up to an immaculately dressed man in his late thirties smoking a cigarette. He had silky blond hair and, if Hermione were pressed, she would admit that he was quite handsome. Up close, he smelled like cloves.

"Filthy habit, that," Hermione proclaimed in a sultry voice, tilting her head forwards to indicate the cigarette in his hand.

The man's eyes roamed over the newcomer, lingering ever so briefly on the enticing cleavage at the vee of her slinky dress, if one could call it that. He wet his lips and flicked the butt's ashes onto the damp concrete.

Hermione gave him an impish smile, and he mutely plucked out a fresh fag and proffered it to her.

She made sure to brush her hand against his when she accepted his offering, a whispered thanks effortlessly sliding off the tip of her tongue.

He removed his lighter from the depths of his coat pockets, flipping open the lid and prompting the fire to flare to life. Hermione moved closer to him than was strictly necessary, cigarette perched in her mouth, and sucked in the flame.

She sidled back to the man's side, and they slowly inhaled their poison of choice in companionable silence. The smoke burned her nasal passages as she exhaled, and she impassively watched as the tendrils of nicotine and tar escaped into the night.

A cab drove up to them as if signaled. The man courteously opened the door and gestured with his hand and the raising of one imperious eyebrow that she should precede him.

With a haughty smile of her own, she gracefully ducked into the backseat. The man leisurely installed himself into the seat beside hers with a triumphant smirk.

A ten-minute drive spent in the exchange of names—as if it really mattered what they called themselves tonight—and in private, stolen glances, and the pair arrived at the posh and extravagant Lanesborough Hotel. Internally, she scoffed at his predictability. Even when spending the night with a call girl, high-end though she may be, the man insisted on having the best accommodations.

The concierge standing sentry in front of the building quickly sprinted over to the cab, umbrella in hand, and opened the door with a flourish. He assisted Hermione out of the vehicle as her companion waited impatiently to be acknowledged.

"Mr. Emerson, a pleasure to see you again, sir. The suite upstairs is ready for you and your… friend. I've seen to it myself that it has been stocked exclusively with your favorites, of course," the short, balding man said obsequiously.

Hermione's consort gave a brief nod, trying but failing to conceal a sneer at the Muggle, and the two of them took the elevator to the Royal Suite. Hermione observed their surroundings with a detached air, having been in this particular hotel several times before with other men and women of high repute. Many clients chose the hotel for its renowned discretion. However, she had never set foot in this most luxurious of guest rooms before, and she took in the accommodations with curiosity. She immediately decided that the suite was truly deserving of its name; the furniture was of the finest quality and the rooms (for there were more than several, as far as she could see) yielded a magnificent view of the Constitutional Arch and the grounds of Buckingham Palace*. The suite was furnished in the elegant style of the Regency period, and she surmised that Mr. Emerson felt right at home.

The man in question busied himself by inspecting the bottle of Pinot Noir set on the nearby dining table. There were two O-Riedel glasses next to the bottle. He poured one glass just under halfway, sniffed appreciatively, and sipped.

Hermione ignored the snub. Just as well, really. She wasn't here for the fine wine.

"What's your pleasure, darling? Knives? Bondage? A bit of a spanking, perhaps? Ponies?" Hermione cavalierly listed off several specialties as she roamed around the sitting room, ostensibly without purpose. She took care not to touch anything.

Mr. Emerson puckered his mouth in distaste at her last suggestion and placed his wine glass onto the table.

"No, nothing of that sort. Get on the bed," he ordered.

Hermione tried her best not to shudder with revulsion. (Or was it anticipation?) She had done this many times before, she told herself. _Just act like you would with any other man._

_But he isn't just "any other man," is he?_ her conscience replied snootily. The voice was suspiciously reminiscent of the bossy, bushy-haired and buck-toothed know-it-all Hermione had once been, as if she were suddenly back at Hogwarts, lecturing Harry and Ron on the twelve uses of dragon's blood.

Forcing herself to forget the past for now—those memories were for another place and time, she reminded herself bitterly, and not without a little grief—she promptly locked away Hermione Granger and brought Victoria the Minx out to play.

Victoria sashayed over to the bedroom, swinging her hips and teasingly fingering the hem of her slip-cum-dress. She crawled onto the lavish king-sized bed on all fours, occasionally looking over her shoulder to see Emerson close behind, appreciatively eyeing her bum.

She rolled over onto her back to face him properly.

"Would you like to undress me, Master?" she suggested coyly, batting her eyelashes at him.

Ignoring her impudence, he bade her take off her own damn dress.

"Yes, Master."

She took her precious time in slipping off her clothes, giving him a short striptease while postponing the inevitable.

Keeping his eyes focused on the display before him, Emerson distractedly removed his own outer clothes, propping his cane next to the bedside table and placing his garments on the adjacent armchair. On the inside, Hermione, unable to stay quiescent for very long, exclaimed victoriously.

As Victoria was about to remove her heels and roll down her thigh-high stockings, Emerson commanded her, "Leave them on."

Finally divested of all his clothing, he got on the four-poster and forcefully turned Victoria around onto her stomach.

"Up."

Instinctively knowing what was being asked of her, she positioned herself on all fours.

He unexpectedly thrust two of his fingers into her pussy, coating them in her juices and stroking upwards. She whimpered. Hermione wondered when she had become so aroused.

"You like that, whore?"

She pushed back onto his hand, gyrating her hips.

"Please…"

He ignored her entreaty, instead removing his digits from her cunt and prodding her arsehole.

"I bet you like being fucked here, too. You enjoy being stretched open wide until it burns, don't you?"

He punctuated this by jamming and forcefully scissoring his fingers into her arse. Victoria cried out in pain but replied in the affirmative to appease him.

"Just as I thought. You're nothing but a filthy slut, begging to be fucked wherever you can get it."

His voice overflowed with cruel satisfaction, and he retracted his fingers from her sore passage. He placed one hand possessively on her hip, holding her still.

Breathless from his sudden brutal treatment of her, she anxiously awaited his next move. She would be lying if she said she wasn't the least bit frightened.

And then, without warning, he was inside her, grunting derogatory slurs into her ear and pounding her mercilessly into the bed frame.

Despite her best intentions, Hermione found herself enjoying the way his thick cock filled her pussy, the way his bollocks slapped against her arse. Merlin, she even enjoyed hearing all the dirty names he was calling her.

_Better to take pleasure in it than just grin and bear it, though._

He continued to pierce her slick cunt, setting an erratic rhythm, driving so hard and so deep that he hit her cervix, and she soon found herself meeting him thrust for thrust, vocalizing her approval.

"Fuck, yes! Harder!"

She lost count of how much time had passed, but after some length she used all her considerable strength (one had to keep fit in her line of work, after all) to switch positions. She flipped Emerson over, his cock sliding out of her with a muffled _pop_, and straddled his hips. He was furious at this new development, she could tell, but she paid no heed to the warning in the tightening of his jaw. She repositioned his cock at her entry and sank down with a sigh. Up and down, back and forth she went, brushing her engorged clit against his lower pelvis with each stroke. She placed her hands on either side of his muscled chest both as leverage and to hold him down, lest he try to reverse their positions.

Eventually, Emerson became so engrossed by Victoria's bouncing breasts and her tight, hot sheath clenching his dick that he forgot his anger. That, or he was simply biding his time. He gripped her hips hard enough to leave bruises—she would need to cover those up later, she thought dazedly—and started thrusting upwards, once again hissing foul invectives at her.

Ignoring Emerson's pleasure entirely at this point, Victoria began striving towards her own completion, furious in her movements and struggling for breath.

She certainly wasn't riding him like a pony for **his** benefit_._ (Although he seemed to be enjoying her exertions, nonetheless.)

And with that thought in mind, her walls contracted and tightened spasmodically around his cock as she came with a quiet moan. Her eyes fluttered open in time to see his nostrils flare in arousal from witnessing her orgasm.

She felt his balls tighten underneath her and knew his climax was imminent. Gathering all her wits about her, she readied herself, undoing the silver clip holding up her carefully molded chignon. The clip released her borrowed silken locks, and they fell like water down her back and around her décolletage. She clutched the precious clip in her hand and silently transfigured it back to its original form.

Emerson roared as his release neared, and he tried to flip Victoria onto her back, bucking upwards and reaching for her slender throat with his large, sweaty hands. Hermione clucked her tongue at him reproachfully and, with the flick of her hand, cast a Full Body-Bind on him split seconds before his ejaculation, spitefully stopping it in its tracks.

Hermione, still straddling his hips with his hard cock buried deep inside her cunt, bent down until they were nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye. Her hair settled around her head like a curtain, casting malicious shadows upon her face in the dim lamplight. She looked nothing so much as a horrific vengeance goddess.

"Not this time, Lucius," she whispered into his ear.

Several emotions flitted across her prey's visage, one after the other: shock, fear, and finally outrage.

Hermione slowly trailed her finger down his chest, stopping where the hair was thickest. She grasped them at the base and, with a sudden motion, yanked hard, tearing out the roots.

"Tell me something, _Lucius_."

His name was sweet poison on her lips.

"How many Muggle women have you killed? How many tramps have pleaded with you for their lives, begging you to spare them, only to be choked until they were blue in the face?"

Her tongue darted out hungrily, tasting him, laving his cheek with her saliva. Malfoy's eyes followed her, wary.

"How many corpses have you fucked dry? Was it fifty at last count? Sixty-five? Refresh my memory for me, darling."

She brandished her silver dagger, the light glinting off of the untarnished surface, and brought it down to his face, placing the flat edge along the cheek she had marked. He would have flinched if he could.

Hermione unfroze his facial muscles, allowing him to speak. She wanted to hear his last words, wanted to see if they were as much of a waste of space as the man himself.

"You fucking bitch! Who are you?!" Malfoy snarled, spittle flying out and sliding down his chin.

Hermione smiled viciously.

"Just another Mudblood whore."

In the blink of an eye, Hermione had slit his throat, warm blood splaying outwards, a scarlet fountain coating them both in his plasma.

How apt that a Pureblood supremacist should die by Muggle means, Hermione reflected in satisfaction. She gently removed Malfoy's deflating cock from her pussy and pushed herself off the bed.

Malfoy spluttered for air, but the Body-Bind prevented him from doing much else. His flesh was turning unnaturally pale, and his eyes, becoming glassier by the second, stared up at the ceiling. His lips twisted in agony, mouth uttering unintelligible consonants. Perhaps he was asking the gods for forgiveness, but Hermione thought not.

He was dead within two minutes.

Hermione's thighs were still sticky with their juices, and her face and breasts were speckled red. A quick _Scourgify_ would suffice for now; she could shower later when time permitted it.

She dressed herself and cleaned up swiftly but thoroughly. Jacquelyn had trained her well—_never leave behind any evidence, magic _or_ Muggle_. Thus, Hermione had taught herself how to perform wandless magic as soon as possible. Without a wand signature, there was no way to track her. The Aurors hadn't caught her yet—not even close—and she sincerely doubted they ever would. She was nothing if not a perfectionist.

A few scant minutes later and, with the exception of Lucius Malfoy's sullied corpse, Hermione left the room as she had found it, devoid of her fingerprints or any stray DNA.

She walked out into the austere streets of Muggle London and found a deserted alley behind which to Apparate. She arrived in an abandoned warehouse at 1:23 AM.

_Seven minutes early._

A tall, lean-built man walked out of the shadows.

"It's done, then?"

"Yes. You have the money?"

"I'll need some proof first."

Having expected as much, Hermione removed from her coin purse a small vial of Lucius's blood along with the Malfoy signet ring.

Her client examined the vial and ring with his wand, casting various identification spells (one of which surely informed him that Lucius Malfoy was indeed deceased) until he was satisfied with the results.

He nodded, pocketing the ring and vial of blood, and handed her a large duffel bag that jangled as it passed hands. Hermione unzipped it and ran a few tests to verify the amount and authenticity of the Galleons. Not that she doubted him, but one had to keep up appearances. She zipped the bag back up and let it hover by her side.

She speculatively ran her eyes over the man standing opposite her; he was the mirror image of his father in almost every way. _Handsome. Arrogant. Distant. _

"A pleasure doing business with you, Draco."

Annoyance flickered across his stony face at the use of his given name, but he quickly suppressed it. It was never wise to anger an assassin.

"Likewise, Astræa."

One corner of her mouth lifted skywards. He was lying, and they both knew it, but she let his insolence slide this one time. She was in a charitable mood.

Hermione grasped the duffel bag's straps and strode out of the warehouse with nary a glance behind her.

********

Draco's girlfriend gasped, spilling her freshly brewed coffee onto the table as she clutched the _Daily Prophet_ in her hand. She promptly _Evanesco'd_ the mess.

"What is it?" Forced nonchalance.

"Your father… he was murdered last night in a Muggle hotel room." Eyebrows furrowed quizzically.

"Oh? Good riddance."

"Draco…" she scolded, "I know he wasn't the nicest man—Merlin knows I had good reason to hate him—but honestly, he was your own flesh and blood."

Draco turned away from the kitchen counter where he had been cooking breakfast—_she_ vehemently opposed employing a house elf, and _he_ had discovered that he quite enjoyed the culinary arts—to stare disbelievingly at his girlfriend of two years.

"Yes, you _do_ have good reason to hate him, so you of all people should understand that I couldn't care two Knuts that he's dead. On the contrary, I'm thrilled. I don't need someone like him shadowing all my endeavors when I'm trying to build a new life for myself. I might have admired him at one point, but that was a long time ago. He was a fucking psychopath, and I, for one, see no reason to mourn his death."

Draco's jaw was tight with anger, his voice barely restrained. He went back to violently whisking their eggs.

She sighed and gently got up from her chair. She retied her silk red robe, needing something with which to busy her hands, and shuffled her slippers across the floor until she was standing behind Draco. She wrapped her arms around his midsection, bunching his crisp cotton oxford in her hands, and rested her left cheek against his taut back.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean… That is, I _do_ understand, and you shouldn't have to feel guilty about it. I'll support you either way, you know that, right?"

Some of his tension ebbed away at this statement, and the beating slowed until the whisk came to a complete stop. Draco looked down sullenly at their ruined eggs.

"I know. Let's just forget it. Today is supposed to be about us, not my travesty of a father."

Behind him, Hermione smiled contentedly and purred.

"So it is. Happy Anniversary, love."

***

**End Notes:**

*"A true disguise." Thanks to AmyLouise for the Latin correction!

*Taken from the hotel's website. I've never visited (as if I have the money), so that was all I had to work from.

*In Greek mythology, **Astræa** or **Astrea** (English translation: "star-maiden") was a daughter of Zeus and Themis or of Eos and Astraeus. She and her mother were both personifications of justice, though Astræa was also associated with innocence and purity.

Astræa, the celestial virgin, was the last of the immortals to live with humans during the sagacious third stage Bronze Age in the old Greek religion's deteriorating Ages of Man, starting from the utopian Golden Age through the defect Silver Age. Fleeing from the new wickedness of humanity, she ascended to heaven to become the constellation Virgo;[2] the scales of justice she carried became the nearby constellation Libra, reflected in her symbolic association with Justitia in Latin culture.

[Note: Hermione is a Virgo.]


End file.
